Hunting wild animals, especially herd animals such as deer, is an art requiring the proper mix of intelligence, patience, endurance and the proper equipment. However, even all of these factors are not necessarily sufficient for a successful hunt. In many cases some of these factors are missing so that special assistance is necessary. One such form of assistance is provided by scent masking agents.
Because animals like deer rely heavily on their highly developed sense of smell to alert them to a variety of dangers, it is necessary for hunters to hide their scents, thereby avoiding alerting the deer to the presence of the hunters. Techniques for doing this have been used for thousands of years. Yet, this alone is seldom sufficient to guarantee success, especially to unpracticed or unskilled hunters.
While it is necessary to cover the scent indicating the presence of the hunters, it is also very helpful to provide some means to attract the animals to the hunters' vicinity. This is accomplished through the use of scent lures, some of which have been used for thousands of years, in some form or other, by hunters to attract their prey.
In the past century, the manufacture and sale of lures, including scented lures has become a major commercial enterprise. With respect to deer (the most widely hunted game animal in the United States) and especially the mature male of the species (the dominant buck, which is the object of most hunts), a lure is often used to attract a wandering buck to a hunter's vicinity so that the buck can be easily taken. The use of such lures is not limited to hunters but also can be used by photographers, or conservationists wanting to study or tag selected animals.
The ideal time for hunting bucks, especially mature or dominant bucks, is during the time that does go into heat or estrus so as to be sexually receptive to the bucks. Such does are attracted to any mature (sexually active) male deer. The mating season also induces the state of sexual excitement in males, commonly referred to as a “rut”. During this time, bucks tend to become very predictable in their activities.
During this state, a buck will mark off his territory for breeding purposes as part of a search for receptive females, or as means for protecting an existing herd including females in estrus. Usually this is done by urination and other forms of marking. The buck will then attempt to prevent other bucks from entering his breeding territory (dominating that territory), and will herd any available does in estrus within the breeding territory so as to mate with as many of them as possible.
A standard method for a buck to mark its breeding territory is the use of a “mating scrape”, which is usually an approximately circular area on the ground about two or three feet in diameter. This area is cleared of all leaves and debris by the buck pawing and scraping the area with its hooves. After the scrape has been made, the buck urinates down the tarsal gland on its leg over the scrape. The tarsal gland is a gland on the hock of a deer leg, and is used to communicate the buck's presence to other deer. The tarsal gland contains both sebaceous and sudorific glands connected to hair follicles that act as ducts to bring pheromone secretions to the surface of the bucks hide. These secretions form a musky dust on the hair follicles in the area of the bucks tarsal gland.
The urine picks up the dust from the hair follicles as it flows, and delivers the mixture to the femoral gland, located between the tarsal gland and the hoof. From there, the urine flows over the interdigital gland located on the hoof of the deer. The mixture of the urine and secretions from the three glands is then deposited on the ground which produces an odor indicative of the particular buck's presence.
As a result, the “mating scrape” is both a visual and olfactory signal for both bucks and does. Usually, a receptive doe entering the mating area so marked, will urinate on the scrape to signal her presence and her state of estrus. In the case of other bucks which come into the area, the “mating scrape” will be an immediate indication that another buck has already marked off that area as his breeding ground. Thus, the scrape will act as either a warning or a challenge to other bucks, as well as an invitation to does.
One strategy for hunters, or others seeking to capture or get close to a buck in heat, is the creation of a “mock scrape”. This is done by imitating the bucks markings on the ground and applying an appropriate lure containing the scent of a buck in rut. However, this is not necessarily the optimum method of attracting a wandering rutting buck since a buck in rut is most interested in the scent of females in estrus, and there was always a chance that the buck may avoid the territory of another buck in rut, especially if there is some indication that the marked territory belongs to a larger and stronger animal. Consequently, many hunters and others hoping to come close to a buck in rut will use urine from a doe, preferably one already in estrus or heat.
Conventional methods of making deer lures usually includes a mixture of fermented tarsal glands of several deer. The fermenting generally takes place in deer urine, also obtained from several deer. The urine is usually a combination of buck, doe and fawn urine. As a result, a buck detecting such a scent will be led to believe that a large herd of deer is nearby. Such a heard may be indicated by the scent as including other bucks in rut. As a result, a wandering buck in rut may actually avoid the lure, despite the attraction of detecting does in estrus.
Since lures based upon deer urine have a refrigerator life of approximately three months, it is necessary to add preservatives in order to increase the shelf life of this product. As a result, the urine product is no longer natural, and may not operate nearly as effectively as a natural urine product. Also, there is another limitation in obtaining a deer urine lure since the preferred urine is from a doe in estrus, and the mating season is limited. As a result, the production of scented lures using the optimum deer urine ingredient (from a doe in estrus) is severely limited.
Because the collection of doe estrus urine is so difficult, and the product awkward to store, it is common in the conventional art to mix a variety of different does urines from many animals, as well as gland products, into a single batch of buck lure. The resulting product is less than optimal for luring a wandering buck in rut to a particular location. Accordingly, there is a substantial need for a buck lure formula constituted by a formula optimized to lure a single buck to a particular area. There is also a definite need for a system that easily produces such a lure.